English Teaching in Indonesia
In addition, we would like to introduce some information regarding the status and education of English in Indonesia.
According to Lauder (2008), Indonesia was once a Dutch colony from 1595 until 1945 before her independence. During colonial period, Indonesian could hardly receive education and learn Dutch except children who were from the local official or prestigious family. The overall educational level of Indonesian was very poor. English was first taught in 1914 in Indonesia. English was never the medium of communication among Indonesian who could receive education, not to mention the general public. Indonesia was then occupied by Japan during the second world war. The teaching of English was not allowed. After the defeat of Japan, Dutch continued to rule Indonesia and to restrict the opportunity of Indonesian to attend school. Indonesian decided to fight for independence and succeeded in 1945. Though the government attempted to assign English as the first foreign language, Indonesia was not a colony of English speaking countries and thus no foundation of English.
English had rapidly developed as a widely used language in the world after the Second World War. Kachru (1983) suggests the model of expanding, outer and inner circle in terms of the use of English worldwide. Indonesia belongs to the “expanding circle” where English is learnt as foreign language. There are controversies in Indonesia which do not hope for a prominent use of English in Indonesia in order to avoid cultural influence brought by English. The possible reason behind might be the status of Indonesia being a conservative country, Western values are therefore not that desirable. Lauder (2008) also states that the role of English in Indonesia has been valued as a tool (alat) to boost economic growth. English is even not recognized as either official language or second language in Indonesia.
The standard of English in Indonesia remains low. Despite the fact that English is also important in Indonesia, it is not proportional to the resources invested in English education in Indonesia. This might be the possible contributing factor to this phenomenon. For instance, the quality of teachers are doubted. A study was conducted by Wati (2011) to investigate the English teaching in Indonesia. According to Wati (2011), its English teachers in Indonesia have to attend training programmes but only in a short-term. The majority of the teachers lack experiences to contact with native English speakers. Also, one teacher participated in the study revealed that students learn English through textbook and grammar materials. Their opportunities of practicing oral English is very rare and unlike Hong Kong, native english teacher (NET) is not included in their education system. Therefore, the English teaching is not effective in Indonesia. Furthermore, the cost of learning English is very expensive so that it is not affordable for ordinary citizens. Due to the limited resources offered from the government. The only way to further enhance their English proficiency is to seek help from private institutions such as private tutors. As mentioned by our interviewee, Heny, the time allocated to English lesson is very little. Under such situation, it is impossible for students to acquire good command of English.